This is goodbye. Until March. I hope.

"CrudeTech" (crudetech) 10/31/2016 at 09:00 • Filed to: crudetech, Project Car, Story, build, SR20DET, 180SX, Nissan 180SX, Drift

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Mondays suck. No matter what happens, except maybe for getting a puppy. Since there’s no way around it, might as well do the depressing stuff on a Monday and save the rest of the week right?

You can read more about up and downs of my time as the caretaker of a “distressed” 1992 Nissan 180SX !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .  

Where am I going with this you might ask. I own a low-slung, right hand drive sports car, in Ottawa, Canada. Which means snow, and freezing rain, and road salt. There’s no way around it, I have to stash the car away for the winter. Might as well ruin my Monday doing exactly that, right?

Found a fellow car guy going for one last drive.

I spent the last week (3rd week of October) slowly prepping the car for storage: quick wash inside and out, a full tank of gas (sans ethanol), some fuel stabilizer to make it last, some more air in those stretched tires, a full battery charge, a dirty-ish car cover, a good charge on the battery, and the all-important beer bottles in the tail pipes.

Never put stuff away dirty. See what I mean?

Oh yeah, and I took it for one last drive, because you know, reasons... Keep in mind the car refuses to run with any kind of noticeable pressure coming from the turbo.

My hometown is famous for one thing: a magnificent park right in the middle of the city. Normally, it is crawling with cyclists cruising its smooth, hilly and curvy roads. However, the cyclists are replaced by slow-driving, lost motorists as soon as the leaves go from lush green to fall-signaling orange.

Normally, I would go completely mad driving behind this slow convoy, but with my electrically-wounded-but-mechanically-sound engine, all I could do is follow, enjoy the sights, and carve up those sinewy roads on last time before the long nap. Needless to say, it was a long drive (2 hours), especially since the rationalisation behind the drive was to go pick up a package, 2 km away from my place. The long way around rocks.

Pretty place. Too bad I’m there to ruin it.

All of that was last week (3rd of October). This week was the depressing part, complete with grey, chilly, depressing weather. I drove the car to the underground parking where I rented a space in their locked storage pen, disconnected the battery, added drier sheets for pest control/freshness, added the essential beer bottles, and drew the cover over my trusty wounded lil’ sports car. Depressing. But it gets better...

Test fitting the cover in my garage. One of the many reasons I hate winter.

As I got home, it dawned on me. I’m far from the end with this project, and the expensive jobs are still to come. The current plan for next spring is to get the car ready for a tune, then bring it for a dyno tune. But not necessarily for power. I just want the stupid thing to run right, as in, work under load... And more horsepower, because racecar, and because dyno sessions are expensive, so I want everything to be done at once, injectors and all.

I also have to address the elephant in the garage (see what I did there?). It needs attention in the looks department. Which means I have to source wide fenders for all four corners, and side-skits to hide the smashed metal under the doors. Easier to hide than to fix it properly for paint.

I also have to address the interior. It’s in great shape, but the broken driver seat rail is unnerving. It feels like driving with a rocking chair instead of a driver seat. Not cool. And who knows, maybe and audio upgrade, or even sound deadening in the hatch area.

I have the whole winter ahead of me, with its long cold dark nights spent on eBay. Maybe some really geeky tinkering as well. I might post more of that here.

Fellow project car owners, I feel your pain, and I’m pretty sure you understand the process I’m going through right now.

Until next time.

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > CrudeTech 10/31/2016 at 09:08

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I know the feels, yesterday my Corvair officially went from “driver” to “project” when I pulled the drivetrain to make it quit losing gear oil at a rate of half a quart every two days.

Milky > CrudeTech 10/31/2016 at 09:14

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How much of a PITA is right hand drive? A Skyline is super tempting. Also:

thebigbossyboss > CrudeTech 10/31/2016 at 09:35

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I know the feeling. It snowed here october 6th. Also I lived in Ottawa for more than 10 years!

Jarrett - [BRZ Boi] > CrudeTech 10/31/2016 at 10:14

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Logic tells me to do the same, and put the car away for the season. Insanity says to throw on the hard top and slide around.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > CrudeTech 10/31/2016 at 10:43

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Oh hey! Another Ottawa dude!

The pain is real for my project (technically, I have two, my Mazda is my quasi-legal daily with a rusted out exhaust) storage issues have been a problem with my Civic ever since the engine blew back in April, the plan with the car is to restore it to be unique, but also factory looking. My room is full of parts for my B series swap, the new engine is ready to go, just have to wait on a friend to be ready to help me out. once that car is done, Mazda is next on the modding block.

KeedyT > CrudeTech 10/31/2016 at 10:50

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Let me get this straight, you have to mummify your car for 5 months of the year because it can’t take the cold?

(Said completely in jest by a person that’s never lived farther north than Tennessee.... this is a foreign concept in our neck o’ the woods :-D. Winter here means my car with no A/C is comfortable to drive for the next several months.)

CrudeTech > KeedyT 10/31/2016 at 16:15

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Exactly. A inch of rain is about a foot of snow if the temperature dips below 15-20 degrees. Every winter, my front lawn is covered by a 10-foot high pile of snow. the issues are road salt, ground clearance, and a law that makes winter tires mandatory.

If you want to experience it, just head to upstate New York. Their winters are just as brutal, if not worse.

KeedyT > CrudeTech 10/31/2016 at 16:21

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I’m good, my snow experiences are the fly to them, spend some fun time, escape back to where winter means wearing a sweatshirt while walking on the beach variety.

CrudeTech > Milky 10/31/2016 at 16:21

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It’s not a pain, if you prepare yourself. No drive-thrus, no overtaking 2-lane roads without a spotter riding shotgun. Parking ticket booths are interesting. Some parts are a pain to come by. I say some because of Nissan parts-bin style: a RHD brake master cylinder from the 300ZX/Skyline was also used in early 90s Pathfinders. With the brake lines on the correct side.

Do your research, prepare for the costs, avoid the drive-thrus, and wave back when people point at you on the road.

CrudeTech > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 10/31/2016 at 16:25

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Ever thought about swapping a dead reliable modern FWD powertrain in your Corvair? I’ve always wondered how hard it would be.

Something like the 4 banger out of a Cobalt SS. Tons of parts available at any part store.

CrudeTech > Jarrett - [BRZ Boi] 10/31/2016 at 16:26

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What kind of car are we talking about.

CrudeTech > thebigbossyboss 10/31/2016 at 16:28

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I dodged that bullet by a few days. I put the car in storage on Monday, and we ended up with 10cm of snow on Thursday.

CrudeTech > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 10/31/2016 at 16:30

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I’ve never seen the point with restoring Hondas, but then I would like an SR-swapped Volvo 240 wagon.

Mazda sounds cool though. Which one is it

Jarrett - [BRZ Boi] > CrudeTech 10/31/2016 at 16:42

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Miata -The rust-prone ones (aka, any between 1990-2010. Mine is 2002!).

Mine’s turning into a project as well. I need shocks and exhaust :(

I was also about to go up to Ottawa on Saturday but it didn’t pan out. What roads would you recommend in the area? I go up there often enough to warrant the odd detour :)

CrudeTech > Jarrett - [BRZ Boi] 10/31/2016 at 17:16

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Cross over to Quebec side of the river and hit the Gatineau Park, or maybe look for twisty road an hour west of Ottawa. I hear Calabogie has some good roads, and a racetrack.

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > CrudeTech 10/31/2016 at 18:23

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People have done supercharged 3800 swaps as well as Toronado swaps.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > CrudeTech 10/31/2016 at 19:08

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1993 323. Considering a F2T swap from a ‘90 Probe, but info is scarce, hardest part is due to mounting the transmission turbo models use, but still can work with one from a N/A car with less durability (not sure if a 93-97 trans will work, as its a whole new model and revised transmission). KL swap is also possible and more documented but with more work mounting the engine. I’d prefer to try keeping it a 4 banger though.

Picked the car up for about $500. spent roughly $1000 in new parts on Rockauto, in addition to cosmetics from Kenny U Pull\SAW as it sits, that freshened the car up quite a bit.

The ‘restoration’ on the Civic is more of a refresh and build, as the car was in good shape to begin with. Engine is freshly bored, and custom built from a 1st generation CR-V block with a VTEC head.